


The Fact Remains

by Lorbender



Series: The Fact Remains [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Black Hermione Granger, Cinderella Elements, Draco Malfoy Speaks French, Draco went to Beauxbatons, F/M, French Draco Malfoy, I fucking loved writing this fic, Mostly Fluff, Musician Draco Malfoy, Sort Of, Soulmate Visions, a bit of angst, always in my fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorbender/pseuds/Lorbender
Summary: Hermione Granger is perfectly used to surprises.One surprise she isn't expecting is her eternal crush, Draco Malfoy, vocalist of Musique Fort Longtemps, putting out a drawing of her on his social media.Or him saying the drawing is of his soulmate.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: The Fact Remains [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1935340
Comments: 13
Kudos: 196





	The Fact Remains

**Author's Note:**

> This soulmate concept was inspired by a Glee fic that I read years ago and would love to credit, but cannot find. If anyone can locate it, please hit me up.  
> There is some French scattered throughout (and some of the accents aren't there because I was writing on an English word processor—sorry), but I think that it should still be easy to understand what's going on if you don't speak French. That said, let me know if you'd like translations and I'd be more than happy to do those.  
> Enjoy. Please.

Hermione Granger is perfectly used to surprises.

Going to Hogwarts was a surprise; meeting her best friend Harry Potter in her first year was a surprise; getting involved in a war was a surprise; being an integral part in winning said war was a surprise; breaking up with her boyfriend Ron was a surprise; deciding to go into law was a surprise; moving in with Harry while he started a job at Hogwarts as the assistant Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and she worked her way through legal education was a surprise. Hermione tends to believe the adage that life is what happens while you’re preparing for something else. Of course, that belief never quite persuaded her to stop preparing.

All this is to say, Hermione Granger is perfectly used to surprises.

The fact remains that this is one she hasn’t been expecting.

* * *

The day before everything goes to shit is, as one might expect, completely normal. Hermione wakes at seven o’clock, yawns her way through her morning tea, grabs a doughnut from the bakery down the block, heads to her legal apprenticeship at the DMLE, does paperwork and errands for six hours, then goes to work.

As she returns home, bidding World of Books a wistful farewell as she locks up, and walks the few blocks back to their flat, she gets a strange feeling—like deja vu, or the feeling one might get when one knows one is being talked about. She looks over her shoulder multiple times, shakes it off. She turns up the music in her earbuds, the newest single from Magique Fort Longtemps, and grins, and wishes her walk was longer so she could finish the song.

Harry greets her when she returns home, and she wandlessly cleans the wet footprints she’s left. Hermione glances at herself in the hall mirror, fluffing her hair a bit, inclined favorably toward her looks today, breathless and glowing from the cold November air. The strange prickly feeling dissipates abruptly; perhaps she’d just been chilly outside.

“Do you want dinner?” Harry asks. He’s become quite the cook recently, and she agrees hastily, peeling off her jacket and gloves and hanging them in the foyer before following him into their little warm-lit kitchen. Harry seems in a very good mood, and Hermione is a bit suspicious.

“So I have this friend from work, the new Potions professor…” Harry says, and Hermione gives herself a point in her head: her suspicions are well-founded.

“Harry, I don’t want to get set up, I already told you,” she says. “I’m not interested.”

“What, so you’re just going to keep pining over that bloke from your French band forever?” Harry, who, as an attractive 21-year-old, has been dating around for a few years, asks like Hermione can ever be emotionally open with anyone.

“I told you that in confidence,” Hermione says, looking down at her plate and poking at her potatoes. Harry’s gone vegetarian with her and she deeply appreciates it, but tonight she wishes she had some meat to pretend to chew for several minutes. “He’s totally out of my league. Not any use feeling this way, I know, I just—”

“Hermione, you’re brilliant, you’re so kind, and quite beautiful,” Harry says, softening. “Anyone would be lucky to be with you.”

“I know all that,” she says. “The fact remains that he’s an unreasonably gorgeous global icon and I’m a broke college student currently stirring tea with a knife.”

She is. They ran out of spoons a week ago.

“I admit that sounds like an issue on the surface,” Harry says.

She waits a moment before asking, “And?”

Harry opens his mouth and says, “ .”

“Exactly.”

“Does that mean you’ll go on the date with my friend?” Harry’s eyes are gleaming. He’s backed her into a corner. Hermione reflects that she’s the lawyer here, and she should be the one winning their arguments, but somehow Harry usually does. She thinks it’s some combination of outside-the-box thinking and sheer pigheadedness.

She sighs. “When does he want to go out?”

When they finally finish dinner, Harry tells her to go “shower or something” and does the dishes. Hermione trudges into her bedroom and somehow winds up on YouTube.

She says that like it’s a mystery, but the truth is that Magique Fort Longtemps is supposed to release their music video for the new single in fifteen minutes.

It’s...kind of become an issue. She isn’t a stalker, or even one of their most rabid fans, of whom there are millions all over the world. But there’s just something about Draco Malfoy, one of the lead vocalists, that makes her whole body pause in its rhythms for one completely pathetic second. She likes to listen to him talking in interviews, his voice bright and animated.

Most people don’t find him their favorite—most interested in the other vocalist and guitarist Pansy Parkinson, a complete firebrand, or the quiet, gentle bassist Theo Nott, or Blaise Zabini, the drummer and headbanger who is, Hermione has to admit, one of the most beautiful people she’s ever seen. Draco is a bit more...sharp-edged, she supposes, is the word. He has a face just angular enough to be a tad shy of conventionally handsome, and he’s usually smarter than anyone who happens to be interviewing him, although he doesn’t often show it. Hermione supposes most fans find him intimidating.

Then again—she thinks back to the last guy Harry set her up with, who spilled every course of dinner and then took her hand and asked her to marry him—everyone in wizarding Britain finds her intimidating, so it’s not much of a shock that she likes Draco.

Hermione clicks on the video a little too eagerly when it’s finally released and loses herself in it; she already knows most of the words to the song, and the video matches it exactly: vibrant and rich, with its members dressed as French Renaissance-era artists. She almost chokes when Draco comes onscreen, but manages to make it through the video without screaming.

It’s great. She watches it again. Then a third time.

Finally, with the song playing on repeat in the background, she gets to doing some work for her apprenticeship the next day. By the time she’s most of the way through the work, it’s nearly midnight. Hermione’s head feels heavy, and she lays it down on her papers, just for a moment, Draco’s voice echoing in her ears.

* * *

“Hermione!”

She lifts her face off her notebook and blears glarily at Harry.

“Are you—okay? When was the last time you showered?” Harry stands, hands on hips, just inside the door of her room.

“Let me check my schedule,” she says, closing her eyes again.

“No—Hermione, it’s seven-thirty! You’re going to be late for work!”

“Oh shit!” Hermione shoots out of her chair, rubbing her horribly sore neck, and begins to fumble her way toward the kitchen.

Harry grabs her by her hood as she starts to make tea. “I lied. It’s six-thirty.”

“And why didn’t you let me sleep?” Hermione asks, sagging into a chair at the kitchen table and squinting at his annoyingly peppy form.

“Because of this,” Harry says, and presses his phone into her hand.

She has to narrow her eyes and blink several times before she can see the image on the screen: a portrait, messy like a sketch, but certainly of her—her medium brown, slightly freckled skin, her fluffy curls, her dark eyes set a bit wide in her round face. Harry takes the phone and swipes right to a drawing of him: a bit less accurate, a bit more hurried in its execution, but, like the other one, unmistakably him.

“Has Luna done portraits of us again?” Hermione asks. “This isn’t her usual style.”

“No,” Harry says. “Hermione, these weren’t Luna.”

“Why do you look like that?” Hermione asks, fear creeping inexplicably up her spine as she takes in the Serious Harry Look: wide green eyes, glasses askew, dark hair all over the place like a hissing cat. “Did Voldemort come back to life and do these portraits or something?”

“Hermione, these were posted on Magique Fort Longtemps’s social media,” Harry says, waving them in front of her face.

“What?”

“One of the members—” Harry swallows— “did their soulmate vision reading. Apparently the Ministry wanted someone high-profile to test it so more people would do it.”

Hermione is sure her mouth is hanging open. She’s heard of the soulmate readings, of course—one of the Ministry’s attempts to help expand the wizarding population post-war, they are supposed to allow one to experience things from their soulmate’s point of view for five minutes or so. But the technology is expensive and a bit untested.

In a flash she remembers that feeling she had yesterday, the prickling sense of being watched as she walked home.

“Do you want me to tweet back at them?” Harry asks, bouncing with nervous energy.

“No, no,” Hermione says, rubbing her temples. “No!”

“Okay,” Harry says. “So...what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to wait, and think about this,” Hermione says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and take that shower. That should satisfy you for a few hours, right?”

Hermione does think about it, while she showers and has tea and gets ready for her apprenticeship. And after all that thinking the conclusion she comes to is a sort of panicked uncertainty. Give her a political issue to research or an Arithmancy problem set to solve. But this? This is exactly the kind of wizarding-world bullshit she’s always hated and never been quite equipped to deal with.

“Can we talk about this when I get home?” she asks Harry as they both prepare to Floo to their respective employers.

“Yeah, of course,” Harry says, kissing her on the cheek and calling, “Hogwarts!” as he Floos away.

Hermione checks she has everything in her bag and heads to the Ministry.

She’s barely had time to brush down her robes, though, when Penelope Clearwater, whom she’s currently shadowing, rushes over to her and says, “Hermione, you’re not going to believe the opportunity I got you!”

“What?” Hermione says, her heart rate suddenly rising. “What is it?”

“Well, that French band everyone’s been talking about recently are in Britain on a two-week visit—very hush-hush, you understand—and they wanted an intern from our department to help them navigate British systems. And of course you’re the DMLE’s best.”

Hermione blinks hard. _That French band everyone’s been talking about recently._

An American Muggle cartoon she watched as a child comes to mind, that one character who always said, _I knew I should’ve stayed home today!_

“Right,” she says, steadying her breaths. She can do this. She can go home and...plan. Yes. Plans. Good. “Of course. When are they arriving?”

“In an hour!” Penelope beams at her. “You’re to go meet them at the international Portkey gate in Brighton; they’re coming from Le Havre. I’ve already set up the Floo connection for you. You should gather anything you might need for the day and head through the Floo in about forty minutes.”

“I’m going alone?” Hermione asks, her head spinning.

“Yes, they just needed one intern,” Penelope says, looking at her with concern. “Hermione, if you aren’t up to it, I can send Boot—”

“No!” Hermione says. Boot will be insufferable if he gets this job instead of her. “I can do it.”

“Wonderful!” Penelope grabs her by the shoulders and steers her toward their offices. Hermione’s always thought Ravenclaws aren’t supposed to be particularly effusive, but clearly that assumption was wildly misguided.

When she arrives at her cubicle Hermione shoves papers, quills, and any maps she can find into her Charmed satchel. She has another cup of tea and goes through the Floo ten minutes early.

“Excuse me,” she says, going up to the gate attendant, a very bored-looking woman in her early forties. “When is the Portkey from Le Havre arriving?”

“About twenty minutes, luv,” the attendant says.

“Right then,” Hermione says. “I’ll just...wait.”

Glancing at the door that Draco Malfoy is about to come through in twenty fucking minutes, Hermione bolts for the ladies’. She manages not to throw up with the aid of a vehemently cast Settling Charm, uses the toilet, and while she’s washing her hands looks up at herself in the mirror.

Hermione doesn’t want to do this. It’ll be messy to keep up, tiring, and a bit complicated. But it appears she has no choice. What if it’s one of the other members and they don’t get along? What if it is Draco and he isn’t what she’d hoped? What if the Ministry’s Charm is defective and they feel obligated to be together and end up hating each other but can never break up? What if…?

Wasting no more time, Hermione starts casting glamours. She pulls her hair down, stretching the curl pattern into looser ringlets and making it longer, adding a few highlights; she erases freckles and adds worry lines; she moves her eyes closer together, darkening and shrinking them, thins her lips and cheeks, and widens and turns up her nose.

After fifteen minutes of careful work, she steps back. She looks a bit like Hermione Granger’s older cousin, not extreme enough to be unbelievable, not subtle enough to be recognizable. She finishes by Charming her voice to be slightly lower and making her figure appear squarer, shrinking her breasts and stomach and widening her shoulders, a change that’s barely noticeable in her Ministry robes but will be much more so if she ever has to wear less shapeless clothing.

She rushes back out of the bathroom and the gate attendant’s eyes widen.

“Shit,” Hermione mutters. “Look, I—”

“I’m not paid to ask questions,” the attendant says placidly and Hermione could kiss her.

It’s only a few more minutes of throbbing anxiety before a blinking red light by the gate attendant’s head indicates an incoming Portkey. The attendant flicks her wand and the doors open.

Pansy comes first, because of course she does. She’s shorter than Hermione imagined, although she knew the fact of Pansy’s height. Her silky dark hair is tied up in two buns on top of her head, and she smiles brilliantly at the gate attendant. Behind her, Theo Nott, with his hands in his pockets, laughs at something Blaise Zabini has said. The two of them are a bit taller than Hermione, Blaise slender and elegant, Theo more solidly built.

“Merci beaucoup!” Blaise calls to the gate attendant, who goes violently pink.

“Draco, allez-viens!” Pansy shouts, turning, and—

Hermione tells her chest not to Do The Thing and it is horribly disobedient. They’ll have to have a talk later.

He’s prettier in person, which is definitely unfair—his face warmer and bright, his hair soft-looking and messy from the Portkey. As he comes in, his eyes travel around the room and meet hers, and she has a half-second of relief as his gaze keeps moving before it suddenly snaps back to her face.

“Draco!” Pansy says, and Hermione hurries forward as Draco looks away and joins the others.

“Bonjour!” Hermione says. “Je m’appelle Hermione Granger; je suis enchantée de vous connaitre. Mon Francais n’est pas le meilleur—je ne l’ai pas utilisé depuis longtemps—mais je peux essayer.”

She smiles breathlessly at them, and Pansy returns the grin.

“Your French is lovely,” she says with just the slightest hint of an accent, “but we do speak English. Some of us better than others.”

Pansy elbows Theo, who laughs.

“Of course you do,” Hermione says, looking down at her feet.

“But it is good to meet you, Hermione,” Pansy says, her lips forming the name with a little hesitation, and when Hermione nods in acknowledgment, she breaks into that smile again, the one that’s charmed millions.

“Pardon me,” comes another voice, and Hermione recognizes it—how could she not, having spent years listening to it—before her eyes meet Draco’s. He, too, speaks perfect English, it seems, although his accent is slightly more pronounced than Pansy’s.

“You seem...familiar, Hermione,” he says, and she freezes for a moment, but after a half-second check it appears her glamours have held. “Have we met somewhere before?”

And there it is. If she’s looking for proof that it was Draco who saw her in his vision, there it is. But...he doesn’t recognize her, at least not fully.

“I don’t think so,” she says, which is technically true. “I’m sure I’d remember.”

Draco smiles but doesn’t look away.

“Right,” Pansy says briskly. “Have you been informed of the nature of our trip?”

“No, I haven’t,” Hermione says, gesturing toward the exit and ushering them out. “How can I assist you?”

“There is a reason we asked for an escort from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” Pansy says. “It is because this must be secret.”

She waits for Hermione’s answering nod. They exit the gate into the chill of November as Hermione remembers abruptly that they come originally from the South of France and sees that they’re wearing only thin summer clothes. She hastily casts a Warming Charm, to which Pansy mutters a thank you.

“This one—” she points to Draco, who’s gone a little pink, whether from the cold or from embarrassment, Hermione doesn’t know, it’s unduly adorable regardless— “had his soulmate vision a few days ago, as you might know.”

“I think I heard something about it,” Hermione mutters, feeling ridiculous.

“Right. Well, he saw some distinctly English things in it, and he’s completely sure his soulmate is in this country...somewhere.”

“Okay,” Hermione says. “I must warn you, our country isn’t as big as yours, but it’s certainly hard to search in two weeks. Do you have any other information?”

“Well, she is a woman,” Draco says. “She looked like she is in her early twenties, perhaps, about our age. She is very beautiful—oh—here.”

He’s definitely blushing as he shows Hermione the picture of herself on his phone, and she tries to keep her hand from shaking as she pushes her hair out of her face to look at it.

“She was working at a library,” Draco says.

“No, Draco, I told you they call them book-shops here,” Pansy says. “‘Library’ signifique bibliotheque.”

Draco mutters something that sounds like, “Les anglaises, completement fous.”

Hermione snorts.

“No, sorry,” Draco says, looking stricken, “I—”

“I get it, trust me,” Hermione says drily. “Je suis d’accord.”

He grins at her, and she looks away.

“What was the name of the bookshop?”

“Ah—’World of Books,’” he says.

Hermione’s breath catches. If they find it...game over. The shop only has two employees.

“She was living with a man,” Draco says, showing her the picture of Harry. “I—considered not coming. But I thought I should try.”

“Quite right,” Hermione says firmly. “She’d be a fool—”

She cuts herself off before she can say anything else, because she is, in fact, the fool in question.

“Do you think the Charm is accurate?” she says instead, looking at all of them now.

“The...how do you say? Unspeakables seemed to think so,” Draco says, shrugging. “They looked serious, they were wearing cloaks.”

Hermione tries not to laugh as he grins at her again.

“Right,” she says. “So do you all know where you want to go first?”

“Tea,” Theo says, at the same time Blaise says, “Shopping.”

Pansy rolls her eyes and smacks them both in the chest without even looking. “Nous ne sommes pas ici pour vos diversions!”

“Why don’t we start by looking through Ministry records for bookshops?” Hermione suggests.

She works at a Muggle bookshop; it won’t be in the Ministry records.

But they don’t know that.

* * *

When Hermione finally arrives home that night, after a long day of Draco looking at her with those eyes and smiling at her with that smile, and Pansy scolding Theo and Blaise in French as they start writing songs very loudly in the middle of the Ministry archives, Harry catches her in the doorway before she has a chance to remove her glamours.

“Hermione...what are you up to?” he says.

And Hermione Granger, who is used to surprises, bursts into tears.

“What happened?” Harry asks, hustling to her in his slippers and hovering expertly.

She tells him everything, and has some tea.

“Why couldn’t this have happened to you?” she demands after she’s done crying. “Look at you, you’re so well-adjusted.”

Harry snorts. “I’ve been in therapy for four years.”

“And that’s very good,” Hermione declares, blowing her nose. “Good for you, Harry. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Harry says. “And...while you're happy with me, this seems like a good time to tell you I’ve been seeing someone.”

“What?” Hermione looks up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not been serious,” says Harry, “and you know how you get, making everything important. And also...I thought you might not like it.”

“Why?” Hermione narrows her eyes at him. “Are you dating one of the other Hogwarts professors? You know I always told you that crush on Madam Hooch was very ill-founded, Harry.”

“No!” Harry gapes. “Disgusting. No, it’s because...it’s Terry.”

“ _Terry_?” says Hermione. “Terry _Boot_? My arch-rival?”

“I assure you he does not see you that way,” Harry says. “He’s completely in awe of you, thinks you’re brilliant. You made up this arch-rival thing in your head, I think.”

“A girl needs an arch-rival,” Hermione says, finishing her tea and shooting him a look that says, _We’ll be talking more about this later_. “It’s an excellent motivator.”

“Getting back to you for a moment,” Harry says. “What are you going to do? You’re not just going to reveal yourself? I mean, you’ve been in love with this man for years.”

Hermione looks into the dregs of her tea; in the center of her cup is what looks like a diamond. She always hated Divination.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t trust the Charm. And what if we get into a relationship and then it turns out we actually hate each other? Maybe I just want to make sure I actually like him, and he actually likes me, first.”

Harry sighs. “Hermione...as good a point as that is...are you sure you aren’t just scared?”

She looks up indignantly. “You’re talking to a fellow Gryffindor here!”

“Well, it just seems like ever since you and Ron broke up you’re afraid of falling in love with anyone else,” Harry says. “I think you’re scared of having your heart broken. And I think you should take a...a calculated risk. If you want to spend a while making sure he’s not a secret ax murderer first, then fine. Just think about it.”

Hermione nods. “I’ll be nice to Terry,” she says, scoffing a bit.

“Don’t think I’ll stop getting onto you if you are,” Harry says, lifting an eyebrow at her.

“There’s no mystery in this relationship anymore,” she says, wiping away a nonexistent tear and clearing their teacups.

“Was there ever?”

* * *

It isn’t a surprise that she ends up really liking Draco. It’s slightly more of one that he seems to really like her too.

They spend three days visiting every bookshop in England called World of Books. Then he remembers a street name and they spend four days walking down Rose Streets all over Britain (Hermione actually lives on Ross Street but she’s a bit nearsighted from so much reading). Hermione cancels the date that Harry set up and tries not to stare at Draco, or to laugh too loudly when he gets annoyed with something or makes a joke. He understands her so well, better almost than Harry, who’s been her best friend for ten years.

They find themselves taking walks together after all the others have gone back to the hotel, switching from language to language and subject to subject easily as breathing. French has never been as easy for Hermione to speak as it is with Draco. She supposes she’s never had so much to say.

On the seventh night, Hermione nearly takes off the glamour when she catches Draco looking at her for a long moment under a London streetlight. But then he gets a call, and it’s his mother, and she nods and smiles and goes home. When she looks at herself in the hall mirror that night, she stares into her own eyes and swears, _Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll tell him_.

The next morning, Tuesday, word comes from France that the band need to get back earlier than expected, since they’ve changed the set for their upcoming concert.

The Portkey will leave the next morning at ten, and come two in the afternoon the five of them are sitting at a tea shop (having finally caved to Theo), discussing the party the Ministry is going to throw for the band that night. Draco looks frustrated and dejected and Hermione can’t catch his eye, much less get him alone.

Hermione leaves them to get ready for the party around four, un-glamouring herself to head to her Ministry cubicle to get some work done.

“Are you coming to the party tonight, Hermione?” Penelope asks, leaning over Hermione’s cubicle wall.

Hermione removes the quill between her teeth. “I didn’t know I was invited.”

“You’re—” Penelope glances around before leaning in to whisper— “their special escort, of course you’re invited! Go ahead and take the rest of the day off. I’ll see you tonight. Don’t forget to dress up!”

Does she own a fancy dress? Her fourth-year Yule Ball gown comes to mind, but there’s no way she’d wear that and besides she wouldn’t fit in it now. Hermione checks her closet when she arrives home at six, and she does not, in fact, own anything nice.

Harry’s still at work.

She Floo-calls Ginny.

“I have something you can wear!” Ginny says, grinning brightly through the Floo.

Hermione looks pointedly at Ginny’s straight frame, muscular and taut from years of Quidditch, and then down at her own soft curves.

“We can alter it,” Ginny tells her, seeing her gaze and rolling her eyes. “Honestly, do you think I’m a complete moron? My mother taught me some Charms.”

“Great, thank you so much,” Hermione says, checking the time. “I have to be there in two hours—”

“I’ll bring it right over,” Ginny says.

Hermione ends the call, sighs, and goes to have some tea.

Ginny lands in the fireplace just as she’s finishing it. The dregs make a circle with messily radiating spokes. Hermione frowns. That looks familiar.

“Here’s the dress,” Ginny says, bearing a load of deep blue satin into the sitting room. “I’ve let it out a bit, and taken it up a bit, and so now you try it on and I’ll make any alterations.”

“You’re wonderful, Ginny,” Hermione says, as the Floo flares again and Harry trips over the grate.

“Hey, Ginny!” he says, perking up, and clambers out of the fireplace to kiss her on the cheek. She grins back at him. They’re much too similar to have ever been lovers, but great friends—like a pair of overexcited puppies tripping over each other and making delightful chaos.

Hermione takes the dress into her bedroom to try it on, and as she’s looking at herself—the dress is quite beautiful, simple and deep blue and shimmery, falling to her ankles and held up by thin straps—she remembers she’ll have to glamour herself for tonight.

“Ginny, will you not ask questions, please?” she asks, and when Ginny raises her eyebrows but nods, she does the glamours—after several days of performing the spells they fall onto her face and body easily, like a spritz of perfume. “I’ll explain later. Just please tailor it like this.”

“Sure,” Ginny says, and Charms the dress. It takes a few minutes, and then she checks the time and says, “Oh! Team bonding! Must run! Looks great, Hermione, just return it whenever you have the chance.”

Hermione has to leave herself in just a minute, but she decides to put on some mascara and lip gloss and call it good. Harry stands with his arms folded in the bathroom doorway, watching her with a skeptical expression on his face, which ends up being, on him, just a little goofy.

“Harry…” she says, putting the mascara wand back in its little casing.

“Aren’t they leaving tomorrow?”

“Well, yes,” Hermione says, opening her only tube of lip gloss.

“And you still haven’t told him?”

“Well, no. I meant to!” she says, whipping around and nearly getting gloss on her cheek. “But there was never a good time. I’ll do it tonight.”

“Hermione, you don’t have to.”

“What?” She turns around fully now.

“If you don’t like him, or if you don’t want to tell him, you don’t have to, you know. You can let him leave. You’re free to do whatever you like.”

“I know.” Hermione eyes him. “It’s not that. It’s just—well. Maybe you were right, about my being scared. But I’m going to tell him.”

“I’ll wait up for you,” Harry says. “Now it’s eight o’clock already, go on!”

Hermione nods, grabs her little bag that holds everything she might need in the case of a nuclear apocalypse, and steps into the fireplace.

First comes dinner, during which Hermione is seated far away from the guests of honor, with the other interns. She does make an effort to be nice to Terry, who, thanks to the glamours, doesn't actually know who she is at the moment, and he is not only appreciative but quite friendly, and she grudgingly admits she likes him. Just a bit.

She catches Draco’s eye once or twice from across the room, and is always the one to look away first.

When dinner is over, the tables remove themselves and some people start dancing, Pansy and Theo and Blaise all with Ministry bigwig donors. It’s most likely some great fundraising ploy on the part of the Ministry but at the moment Hermione can’t bring herself to wax poetic about government corruption because Draco’s approaching her where she’s sitting in the corner.

“Hi,” she says as he pulls up a chair to sit beside her. He’s wearing a dark gray suit and she tries not to look at his arms and legs and chest and settles on looking at his ear.

“Hello,” he says, and there’s a brief awkward moment as though they haven’t spent the past week together. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you,” she says. “So do you.”

“I—” Draco takes a deep breath. “I don’t know how to say this in English—Hermione, I came here looking for my soulmate, and I want to find her, just for...for peace of mind, but—if for any reason—”

Hermione’s whole being experiences something of an electric shock as she understands what he’s saying. “Draco, there’s something that I have to tell you, before you keep going,” she begins, and then, with a pang of horror, she sees Penelope approaching them. Penelope, who knows what Hermione really looks like, and if Penelope knows Hermione’s been glamouring herself, then everyone will know, and it could be the end of her career with the DMLE if they think she’s been deceiving them—

“I have to go,” she whispers, and gets up, trying not to run as she passes Penelope and averts her face.

From behind her she can hear Draco getting up, and then Penelope introducing herself, and his low murmur, “Enchanté,” and Penelope says, “Such a shame Hermione couldn’t come,” and Draco says, “What do you mean? She was just here,” and Hermione dashes into a fireplace and Floos home.

When she comes out of the fireplace she finds Harry asleep on the sofa, his glasses askew, students’ papers slipping from his lap. He sighs when she takes the glasses off his nose and the papers off his lap and pulls up the blanket further on his sleeping form, but he doesn’t wake.

Hermione doesn’t sleep easily tonight. She just lies in bed for hours, thinking, because that’s what she does best. She isn’t good with impulse, doesn’t like to rush into things. She goes quickly, but methodically, no stone left unturned. So she turns over all the stones.

She hasn’t been in a relationship in years, since she and Ron broke up and the jagged edges of that love crept into any prospect of a new one. They’re friends now, and he’s with Lavender again, and she’s much better for him than Hermione was, Hermione was too complicated and too focused on work and too... _too_.

But goddammit, she can be _too_ if she wants to be. And she’s goddamn Hermione Granger. She’s brave and smart and tough. She has conquered fear many times. She is used to surprises. Why should being loved the way she deserves be so much of a shock that it makes her turn tail and run?

Hermione wakes with a start at nine o’clock and panics. She jumps out of bed, throws on the first jumper and jeans she sees, grabs her wand, and runs to the front door for her shoes and coat.

She flings open the door, ready to dash out and head a block over for the dedicated Apparition point to London, only to find someone in her way.

“Bonjour,” Draco says, sticking his hands in his pockets. His face is pink and he’s breathing hard.

“How—” Hermione says, her wand hanging limp in her hand.

“I got your address from the Ministry,” he says. “I hope it’s alright.”

“I was going to ask how you knew it was me,” Hermione says, managing to recover her voice.

Draco shrugs, the French-est of his mannerisms. “I—well, hier soir, Penelope m’a dit que...she didn’t think that you were...you, et je m’a pris conscience. And I should have known before because you were so brilliant and funny and good to talk to, Hermione, I don’t know why you were glamouring yourself, et je ne sais pas si tu as un amoureux—”

Hermione shakes her head so violently she’s getting dizzy. The idea of loving anyone else—

“—mais, quand même, the fact remains that I’m in love with you, je suis depuis la première fois que je t’ai vu, et donc depuis le moment that...that we talked, and—”

“Moi aussi,” Hermione says and steps into his arms before he can say anything else.


End file.
